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Leliunai

In Yiddish, Lelyun

Written by Dov Levin

Translated by Shaul Yannai
A village and the center of a county, 8 km southwest of Utena, the district's city. For an extended period of time, Leliunail's land belonged to the the Pomarenatski and Artsimovitz aristocratic families. Before WWI (1897), Leliunai had 305 residents, including 140 Jews. At the beginning of the war (summer of 1915), the Jews were expelled to the interior of Russia. Not all of them returned after the war. The 1923 Lithuanian government census counted 353 residents, with 63 Jews among them. The Jews of Leliunai made their living mainly by trading flax, poultry, and crops. The village had weekly market days that were held on Thursdays. In 1939, the village had 3 telephones; one of them was owned by a Jewish farmer by the name of Israel Frak or Frakas. Leliunai had a Kheder, but some of the Jewish children studied in Utena, where the Jews of Leliunai also buried their dead. 7 people participated in Leliunai in the elections to the 18th Zionist Congress (1935): 6 voted for the Revisionist party, and 1 for the General Zionists A. During the period of Russian Rule (1940-1941), Leliunai had 240 residents, with 63 Jews among them. At the end of July, 1941, after the Germans conquered Lithuania, the fate of the Jews who remained in Leliunai was the same as the fate of the Jews in the surrounding areas: during the month of August, 1941, all of them were murdered by Lithuanian Nationalists who joined the ranks of the German occupying forces.